Cage's enthusiastic reaction to this performance encouraged Trio Dolce to ask Cage if he would consider writing a work for them which "could take into account the ranges of the recorders" the Trio then owned. Upon meeting the members of the Trio during his residency at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague in November 1988, Cage agreed to write a work for the Trio. 'Three' was completed in July 1989 and dedicated to Trio Dolce, who premiered it in July 1990 in the presence of the composer during a concert at the Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music. The performance instructions state that the indication "as legato as possible".